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(ICIS) -- The recent drop in retail
gasoline prices could buoy an increase in the number of US Thanksgiving Day
holiday motorists, a market analyst said on Wednesday, but others predicted the
shaky economy could dampen travel.
“Sentiment is that prices are lower than earlier this year, [despite]
that they are much higher than last year, and that’s pushing people to view
things positively, thus making little or few changes to their plans,” said
analyst Patrick DeHaan with GasBuddy.com.
On 5 September, the US retail average for unleaded gasoline was
$3.643/gal (?.71/litre), according to the US Energy Information Administration
(EIA). On 21 November, the average price was $3.312/gal, a drop of 9.1%. DeHaan
said prices for the holiday would still be at least be 25-50 cents higher than
any previous Thanksgiving, but the prices have slowly come down in the past
couple of months.
In addition, recent headlines have brightened the US economic outlook,
said analyst Stephen Schork, author of the Schork Report.
The past two weeks has shown US unemployment claims under 400,000, and
the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for October was higher, indicating increased
buying of retail items, including gasoline.
Schork also pointed out, however,
that the MasterCard SpendingPulse has reported lower gasoline demand. For the
week ended 4 November, gasoline demand was 8.665m bbl/day, according to the
report, the lowest weekly demand since 9 September.
Perspectives of development of the polymers markets, pricing issues and
other important aspects will be discussed at The Polymers
Summit-2011, which will be held in Moscow on November 30, 2011 at the
Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Summit is organized by MRC with the support of ICIS. The
main idea of the Summit is to find a "the golden mean" between producers and
converters. When producers receive exactly such margin of production, which
helps them to invest in production expansion in order to substitute polymers
imports, and the converters receive such price of feedstock that helps them to
compete imported finished products. The Summit site gives an access to the live
video of the Summit, speakers" presentations, as well as opportunities to ask
questions or make appointments to any Summit partcipant.
mrcplast.com
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